When It Rains
by Phantom Rosabelle
Summary: Sharon and the team search for Rusty when he disappears, but bringing him home is easier than moving on.
1. Three Children

**Warning: **This chapter contains some semi-graphic description about murdered children.

**Notes: **Thank you everyone for all of your comments/support/encouragement! You've all been wonderful to interact with.

**When It Rains**

**rosabelle**

**Chapter I: Three Children**

**Day 7**

The first dead boy was Jacob Miller, but it was a day before they learned his name.

The first day, all Sharon knew was that he wasn't Rusty, and that his death had been a cruel one.

When she first saw him laid out on Dr. Morales's table, so small and sandy-haired, there was a moment where she felt wobbly and sick to her stomach, her mouth watering in the way that told her she was about to vomit. She might have, if she were alone. Instead, she forced back the bile and though her knees threatened to, they did not buckle.

"Uh, Captain—" Morales cleared his throat. "I really don't mind doing this out in the hall."

His tone, quiet, serious, and absent of all his usual wit, only threw her more off-kilter.

"Thank you, Doctor, but that's not necessary. I'm all right."

There was a lengthy pause. The periphery of her vision was filled with silent motion and distantly, she heard the hushed whispers that accompanied all the arm waving, but Sharon couldn't take her eyes from the boy.

Then: "Well, if you don't mind, I think _I'll_ listen from the hall."

The words were followed by the departing click of heels and, God. How terrible must she look to have even Emma reacting to her in sympathy?

"Good idea. It's... warmer, out there."

Amy left to join Emma, and Morales waved Sharon towards the door with both hands. "The masses have spoken," he said. "After you, Captain."

Sharon said quietly, "I'll be along in a moment," and stepped closer to the autopsy table. Morales sighed, loud and impatient, but he slipped out of the room and gave her the moment.

She stared down at the boy's face for a long, long time. Up close, he didn't look like Rusty, not really. There was the hair, and something in the shape of his nose made their profiles look similar, but Rusty was taller and his shoulders broader. These were the things that Sharon told herself, because the thought of Rusty, _here_, with these injuries—She bit down on the inside of her lip until she tasted blood in her mouth.

Sharon laid her gloved fingers against the boy's cheek, and then she exhaled a long breath and went to find his killer.

It was quick work, once they had his name. Jacob's stepmother hardly waited for Lieutenant Flynn to finish the death notification before she burst into noisy tears and told them everything. Her husband, the boy's father, shouted at her to _shut up_, but she couldn't confess fast enough. Jacob had failed his history test and hadn't cleaned his room, she told them, so his father had beaten him with an electrical cord. Breaking his neck in the process had been an accident, really.

Sharon didn't trust herself to conduct the interview. She sat stiffly beside Buzz and watched from the safety of the electronics room instead, her hands white-knuckled and knit together. There was a moment where she thought he wanted to reach out to her and then she folded her arms and shifted just slightly away.

She knew he worried too.

In the afternoon, she sat down with Jacob Miller's mother and told her why her son was dead. Through the woman's keening, inconsolable sobs, Sharon caught a word or two.

—_my fault—_

—_should've have let him—_

—_knew his father was violent—_

—_my baby—_

Sharon leaned forward and took the woman's shaking hands in her own.

* * *

She came home to a peace and solitude.

She never thought she would hate it so.

She took refuge in routine and found comfort in procedure, and maintaining that was something that she strove for every day. She had always been orderly, even as a child, and she had carried that with her into adulthood. It had given her purpose, restoring order to the chaos her life had become, after she separated from her husband and professionally, it was something that she valued as well after nearly thirty years of working in internal affairs, which had allowed her more regular hours and stability to raise her children.

The routine had changed through the years. Her children had become adults and she'd sold the house. Found herself the condo and cut her commute in half. For the first time in her entire life, she came home to an empty, silent house, and she found that she enjoyed it. She could retreat inside at the end of a long day and relax a glass of wine and her favorite music without being told it was the worst sound in the world or being asked to help with homework when all she wanted to do was take a nap.

And then her routine had changed again, and she'd found herself once more preparing two lunches each night instead of one, attending parent-teacher conferences, and giving driving lessons with as much patience as she could muster (on the especially nerve-wracking days, she allowed herself something a little stronger than wine afterwards).

The fights, too, had been part of her—their—routine, and she'd enjoyed that part much less than the rest, but they had smoothed the edges from each other with time, and peace had settled.

The house was too silent now.

There was nothing now that she wouldn't give for the chance to shout at him.

If she weren't so sick with fear for him, she thought she could be angry.

**Day 20**

When they identified the second boy as Adrian Dunn, her heart seized and her throat painfully constricted.

"Dunn?" she croaked out, stopped in her tracks as she paced near the board. "His name is _Dunn_?"

"We already checked, Captain," Provenza told her. "No relation."

She had to fold the case file to her chest before they saw her hands shook. What did it matter, really, if this boy was a relative of Rusty's? Would she want his death solved any more, or any less?

The boy whose picture was fixed to the white board bore little resemblance to Rusty. His hair was darker, his skin paler, his eyes soft and gray. But there was something—in the shyness of his smile, and the sort of wide-eyed excitement he showed—that reminded her of Rusty and how _proud_ he had been when he'd stood in line for his driver's license photograph. She had been proud of him, too, and so happy that he was experiencing what should be normal milestones in the life of a teenage boy.

She hoped that she'd told him that.

And now Rusty was gone, and Adrian Dunn had bled out from a gunshot wound to the abdomen.

"His family's on their way in, ma'am," Detective Sanchez reported quietly.

Sharon tore her eyes away from the photo. She cleared her throat and lowered her arms, the file in her hands now dog-eared and wrinkled. "Thank you, Detective," she said. "Have Buzz set up the cameras, please."

In the end, Adrian Dunn's death had been an accident. He and his brother Leo knew where their father kept his shotgun, and they'd smuggled it outside. Just to _look_ at, Leo told her tearfully. Just to play with. He hadn't known it was loaded when he'd pointed it at his brother and pulled the trigger. He'd only moved Adrian's body because he was scared; he'd only wrapped his brother in plastic bags and thrown him in the trash because he hadn't known what else to do. He was sorry.

When it was over, Sharon ushered Emma out of the conference room and left the boys' parents to their grief. In a way, they had lost both of their children today.

* * *

Wearily, she changed into more comfortable clothing upon arriving home at the conclusion of the long and terrible day. She wrapped the long sweater closely around herself and poured herself a glass of wine from the bottle in the fridge, and she drank it alone on the couch in silence.

Sometimes, she tried watching TV or humming along with one of her CD's, just to break up the monotony a little. She found herself staring at the screen without seeing it, and her voice died before it reached her lips. She didn't have the heart for it.

She always found herself standing in the room at the end of the hall. She'd put Rusty's room back in order after it had been searched top to bottom and twice over, but after that she had tried to stay away. This was still his space, she told herself. This was his sanctuary that she'd prepared for when he came back home, and now she shouldn't violate his privacy anymore by entering.

She always ended up opening the door anyway, just to look. Then she sat on his bed, hugging his pillow close the way she would've held him if he were there, and she looked some more. That was the hardest part. She had organized the room as Rusty had left it, and the way he had left it told her everything. He'd cleaned, and where there would have been clothes strewn across the floor, there was instead a well-vacuumed carpet. He'd even made the bed. When she saw that, she knew that he had left without meaning to return.

She thought her heart couldn't break one time more.

She was wrong.

**Day 31**

The third boy.

Oh God, the third boy.

Sharon was in her office when she glanced up to see Dr. Morales standing in the murder room in the midst of a quiet but fierce argument with Lieutenant Provenza, both of them pointing and waving in her direction. Sharon froze, her entire fist curling around then pen she held in her hand.

She knew. She couldn't explain how, but the moment she saw the two of them standing together, a terrible certainty descended upon her, and she knew what the doctor was here to tell her. The knowledge settled over her like a hot, too-heavy blanket and left her struggling for breath.

Through the window, she could see them coming towards her.

Her skin prickled painfully as they reached her door, her fingers tingling in that hot yet cold way that preceded a panic attack.

Oh God, oh God.

When the knock came, she closed her eyes. "Come in." Her throat was so dry the words had to scratch their way out. She would have only been slightly surprised to find blood in her mouth.

"Captain." Dr. Morales stepped inside and made to shut the door behind him; Provenza elbowed his way in before that happened, and the doctor sighed. "I need you to come with me."

She swallowed painfully. "Is it him?"

"He doesn't _know_," Provenza said, "because instead of doing his damn _job, _he came up _here_ to—"

"It's all right, Lieutenant." When Sharon held up her hand, it was steady. She was calm now, save for the odd ringing in her ears. "Dr. Morales?"

She had spent the last month preparing herself for this moment. She knew the odds, and she knew that with each day that went by with no word, _this_ was the most likely outcome. She was almost expecting this.

"As I told Lieutenant Provenza," Morales continued, and she hated to hear him sound like this, so somber and serious, so unlike himself again. "The physical description is a close match, and I have no usable fingerprints. I'm still waiting on dental records, if you would prefer not to—"

"No," she said. It would be best to get this over with today. "No, that's all right, Doctor. I—I can make the identification."

She rose.

She did not cry.

She shrugged into her jacket automatically. When she did up the buttons, her hands didn't tremble, but she couldn't feel her fingers.

She didn't remember how she got from her office to the morgue, only that she blinked and she was there with Dr. Morales standing at her side, warning her that the body was in bad shape, that someone had tried to _burn_ him.

"Sharon." Provenza's hand was on her elbow then. "I could take a look at the kid."

She stared at the man who would swear to high heaven that he wasn't her friend, the one trying to spare her now, and she shook her head. Her tongue was leaden in her mouth and she could not speak to tell him so, but this was something that no one else could do for her. She braced herself and walked into the room as bravely as she could, because if all she could do now was be there for him one more time, then that was what she would do.

White spots encroached upon her vision in the instant before Morales lifted the sheet, and she gripped the edge of the table hard, her heart in her throat. She no longer felt calm.

She saw blond-streaked brown hair, longer now than it had been when she'd last seen him and she remembered how Rusty had argued about the haircut because it was a stupid rule and why should he care what the school thought when he wasn't even Catholic, and—

And she stared in terrible, disbelieving relief, because the dead child wasn't hers.

She closed her eyes and looked again, just to be sure, because she wanted it so _badly_. But the boy wasn't Rusty, and Provenza was already shouting at Morales.

"You couldn't have _waited_—"

Sharon didn't wait hear the rest. She said only, "It's not him," and left the room. She meant to return to her office, but she saw the bench near the elevator and she sat there, because it was as good a place as any and she wasn't sure that her legs would carry her any farther. Elbows on her knees, she dropped her head down into her waiting hands, forcing herself to take deep, measured breaths in through her nose, and exhaling through her mouth.

Relief made her shaky.

She straightened with another breath.

She knew, of course, that he could still be dead.

That he was even _probably_ dead, and that it meant nothing that she hadn't found him yet. She'd seen enough bodies come to light after years of being hidden away. Was he buried in a landfill somewhere? Wrapped in plastic and sunk into the sea? Was he, too, lying in a shallow grave in Griffith Park?

All she could do was hope not, and wait to see what tomorrow brought.

She wasn't sure how much longer she could carry the weight of this uncertainty before it drove her to her knees.

Sharon bowed her head again, praying silently for strength.


	2. Unexpected

**Notes: **Sorry for the delay between chapters but no, this is _definitely_ not a oneshot. I'm not quite sure how long it'll end up being but there's at least five more chapters after this one and maybe more. Thank you so much for your comments on the first chapter! :)

**When It Rains**

**rosabelle**

**Chapter II: Unexpected**

**Day 32**

It was inevitable that sometimes Sharon would bring her work home with her, though she tried not to. It had been easier to maintain that separation between home and work when she'd been in charge of FID—still not _easy_, not when there were endless seventy-two hour reporting cycles and division heads who wanted their officers cleared of wrongdoing and back on the job before they'd even been questioned by FID. Which was what FID wanted as well, because no one wanted good officers kept off-duty longer than necessary, but never mind that.

The boundaries between her professional and personal life had been trounced thoroughly the very first day she'd transferred into Major Crimes. That first week, wherever she had gone, Rusty had gone. Reluctantly and complaining every step of the way, but he'd gone. And even once he'd been settled in school, he'd spent most of his time lurking around in the office.

Now he was God knew where, doing God knew what (except that she was painfully aware of what the _what_ might entail, and it made her sick to think of anyone hurting him), while she had pictures of a dead boy who was almost him spread across her dining room table. She'd tucked the folder into her purse on her way out of the office the evening before—she would've spent the entire weekend thinking about Ethan Williams and how he'd died anyway. She might as well try to be useful about it.

The drink in her hand was tea, not wine. Sharon worried that if she opened a bottle tonight, she would finish it. She hadn't been more than tipsy in decades, and now the temptation to drink herself into oblivion was strong.

Focus, she scolded herself.

She lifted the mug with both hands to hold it steady, and sipped it slowly as she re-read the interview notes. Ethan was a good kid, his family told them. Straight A's, according to his father. Played the violin, said his mother. Helped with algebra homework, his younger sister said, but lately he'd been too busy. No, he didn't have a job. No girlfriend. She didn't know where he went.

Was there anyone who would want to hurt him? No, of course not.

Did he do drugs? Never.

Dr. Morales had found cocaine in his system. They didn't know yet where he'd gotten it.

When she'd gone glassy-eyed from staring at her notes, Sharon tilted her head back against the seat and closed her eyes.

God, but she was tired of seeing dead children in her mind's eye.

She leaned forward and buried her face in her hands, pressing the heels of her palms into her eyes until she saw stars instead.

The first thud out in the hallway, she hardly noticed. Little noises like that happened all the time when there were neighbors around. But when the second thud echoed right up against her door, Sharon slowly lifted her head and blinked the dots from her vision.

She stood—just to be sure that whoever was out there was all right, she told herself, not because she truly believed that Rusty had reappeared out of nowhere, but that was belied by the pounding of blood in her ears and the sudden weakness in her knees.

And then there was the unmistakable sound of a key scraping in the lock, and Sharon nearly tripped in her haste to get to the door. She flung it open, and—froze where she stood, unable to reconcile the person that she'd expected to find with the one who actually stood on the other side of the door and smiled at her.

_"Katie?"_

It came out in a croaky whisper, and that was all that she had time to say before her daughter closed the distance between them and wrapped Sharon in a bear hug. She couldn't quite lift her all the way off the ground the way that Ricky always did, but she squeezed for all she was worth and that was enough to raise Sharon up onto her toes. She staggered from the force of it.

"Hi, Mom."

The tears that burned her eyes came from nowhere, but couldn't be helped. She blinked them furiously back as she wriggled gently out of the tight hold, because if she cried, she knew that Katie would worry. If she cried, she might never stop.

Once her arms were free, she hugged Katie around the neck and swallowed hard to speak. "Honey, what are you _doing_ here?"

"Checking up on you," Katie said cheerfully, her voice level with Sharon's ear. "Don't I get to come in?"

They were still in the open doorway. Still half in shock, Sharon stepped out of the hug, and turned sideways to give her daughter room to enter, even as she said, "You didn't need to come all this way for that."

"Well—" Katie bent to retrieve her duffel bag, not sparing it so much as a glance as she lugged it inside and dropped it against the wall. Her eyes never left Sharon. "If _you_ could pick up the phone every once in awhile, then I wouldn't have needed to spend my first free weekend in three months flying across the country to check on you, and seriously, _what_ has been going on? You've been "too buy" to talk for a month now."

"Because I _have_ been," Sharon said. Even as she looked on in a bewildered sort of joy, even knowing that Katie hadn't even been inside for thirty seconds yet—even then, testiness crept into her voice and it took all she had to wrestle with it. Because it wasn't Katie's fault, but she could already hear all the questions that she knew were coming, and she didn't have _time_ to go through it all over again. "I never meant to worry you."

"What's wrong?" Katie asked, fearful and quiet. Sharon couldn't stand the pleading in her eyes.

"It's... complicated," she said. "Honey, we can go to breakfast tomorrow if you want, but I really do have a lot of work that I need to—"

"Ricky thinks you have cancer."

That brought her words to an abrupt halt. Sharon stared. "What?"

"And I told him, no, okay, he's not even a real doctor and I think working in a hospital is making him a hypochondriac or something, but now that I'm here, you look _terrible_."

And now, in addition to everything else, she would have to worry about how she'd made her children think that she was dying.

"If it'll set your minds at ease, I do _not_ have cancer," Sharon said firmly. "I'm not sick."

Katie paused mid-tirade, looking her up and down with a worried frown. "Then what's going on? Mom?"

It seemed there was no getting out of it. Weariness settled in her shoulders, and Sharon waved a tired hand towards the couch. "You might as well sit," she said. It's a long story."

**Day 1**

"Which test is it?"

Rusty somehow managed to look both nervous and utterly blank-faced all at once. "What?"

"You've been fidgeting all morning," Sharon said, surveying him from cubicle entrance. He'd hardly touched his breakfast, either. "And I know you have a test today."

It took another instant for him to look like himself again. "History," he said, scuffing his shoe along the ground. "English is tomorrow."

"Those are your best subjects," she said, frowning. "You shouldn't have anything to worry about."

"No, I know," he said. "Just. I'm not sure how well I learn—"

"From a computer," she finished. "I know."

"Right." Rusty glanced down at the desktop. "I guess I told you that before."

"Once or twice." At great length, she could've added, but didn't. "Just do your best, honey."

"Yeah," he muttered. "Sure."

"Rusty." Sharon did her very best not to sigh.

"Sorry."

"I wish you were back in school just as much as you do," she said quietly. "I know this isn't ideal, believe me."

He nodded, just once, and so slightly that she almost missed it.

"I'll let you get to it, then." She turned to go. There was a dead man waiting for her with Dr. Morales downstairs.

"Sharon?"

She paused. "Yes?"

"I just wanted to say... thank you." His eyes didn't quite meet hers. "For not letting anyone take me away."

"Oh, Rusty," she said. "Honey. You don't even need to worry about that. You're not going anywhere."

He ducked his head, looking down with an unhappy frown that made her heart ache for him. She hated it too—hated pulling him out of school and away from his friends, hated that she could no longer provide him with the sort of normalcy that he needed and deserved. But this was still better than nothing, for both of them.

She left him then, giving a quick smile and nod to Officers Romero and Bennett as she passed them. She tried to express her gratitude to Rusty's security detail, because he certainly never would and she knew that it was a thankless job.

They nodded back, and she went to the morgue feeling a little better. Maybe she'd take Rusty out to dinner. Maybe not. She'd been letting him choose where they went for dinner ever since she'd implemented his security detail, and after two weeks of eating burgers every other night, she wasn't sure if she was up for another night of that.

It wasn't even half an hour later when Officer Romero found her in the morgue, stammering apologies that were beyond Sharon's ability to comprehend. There was a sheet of paper in her hand, ripped from a notebook and creased with fold lines.

Sharon took it when it was thrust into her hands. She had to read it twice to understand what she was seeing, and with comprehension came a cold terror that raised goose bumps along every hair on her body.

_Sharon—_

_I'm really sorry about this. I took all the emergency money from your desk and I'm sorry about that too, because you've always been good to me and I know that. Please don't be too mad. I'll be okay. _

—_Rusty_

**Day 32**

Parts of the story sounded like they belonged to someone else. Parts of the story cut into already open wounds. Parts of the story she omitted, because her mouth wouldn't form the words.

Somewhere near the end of the tale, Katie silently rose and went to the kitchen. She filled the tea kettle and set it on the stove, and leaned against the counter with folded arms as she listened to the rest.

Sharon followed her daughter, still talking, and slid into one of the stools at the breakfast bar. She rested her elbows on the countertop and finished the story with her forehead bent against her hands, her voice growing thick and heavy as she reached the end.

"And you haven't heard from him since?" Katie asked softly.

Sharon closed her eyes, shaking her head without lifting it. "Not a word."

The kettle whistled. Katie went about making the tea while Sharon sat stiffly and watched. Rusty had left his phone behind, but she sent him an email every night in the hope that he would read it. Mike had guessed his way into Rusty's account. Wherever he'd gone, he hadn't told anyone in an email, and he hadn't checked it since he'd left. Every message from the last month had gone unopened, and she checked the login info twice a day. More, if she was feeling jittery. She was the only person to have accessed the account in weeks.

She'd called in every favor she had with everyone she knew, and they'd all come up empty handed.

Sharon tried not to wonder just how he knew how to evade her, and how much of it he'd learned from her.

"Mom?"

She wished that people would stop speaking to her in timid, worried half-whispers.

"I'm fine," she responded automatically. "Just... thinking."

She heard Katie sigh, followed by footsteps moving towards her. Sharon lifted her head as Katie approached, tea in hand.

"Do you remember," Katie asked, pressing the mug into Sharon's cold hands, "the time that Ricky ran away?"

"I try not to." Sharon wrapped her fingers around the mug, but the warmth didn't touch her fingers. "He was only gone for three days."

Three days and two nights, to be precise. Until now, that was the most frightened she had ever been in her life. They'd argued, the night before. He'd wanted shoes. Outlandishly expensive shoes that she refused to buy him. Fine, he said, I'll get a job. Not until your grades improve, had been her answer.

In the morning, he'd been gone.

"I know," Katie said. "I'm not saying it's _exactly_ the same, but—when he came home, do you remember how he said he knew it was a stupid idea after the first night but by then he was too afraid to come home because he knew you would be upset?"

"So instead he stayed away an extra two days." She definitely remembered. While she'd worried that he'd gone out and killed himself over a pair of sneakers, he'd spent a weekend in his best friend's attic, eating Cheetos and playing video games.

He hadn't gone anywhere but school, home, and the orthodontist for the rest of the year. He thought it was one of those funny stories of being a teenager now but even ten years later, Sharon couldn't bring herself to laugh about it.

But Rusty—well, Rusty had gone and done the impossible by being more stubborn than both her children combined, but that he would stay away a _month_ (more than a month, she reminded herself, and felt sick all over again) just because he was afraid to come home and face her... No, there was more to the story than that. There was something that she was missing.

Had she _done_ something?

Her hands shook violently enough to spill hot tea over the rim of the mug. Sharon hissed as her fingers burned. She spilled even more tea in her hurry to set the mug down and went with gritted teeth to run her hands under cold water at the sink.

"Mom?" Katie hovered near her elbow. "Do you need some ice?"

"No." Out of the corner of her eye, Sharon saw Katie's mouth open and added sharply, "_Yes_, I'm sure."

"Sorry." Katie held up both hands with an apologetic smile. More importantly, she took several steps back. "I guess Ricky's not the only worrywart in the family now."

Sharon almost smiled.

"I won't be in your hair for too long, anyway," Katie went on. "I fly out tomorrow night. We start rehearsal for the next show Monday morning."

She did manage a smile then, shaky though it was. "I want to hear all about it," she said, as she turned off the faucet. She reached for a towel to dry her hands. "But you should get settled first."

"I have, like, one bag," Katie said. "There's nothing _to_ settle."

"You can sleep in my room," Sharon continued, her hand already on Katie's elbow to steer her in the right direction. "I can—"

"Mother," Katie said. "I swear to God, if you try to sleep on the sofa, I _will_ find a hotel."

Katie looked more like her father at first glance—both of her children did. They wore Jack's coloring and complexion and shared the warm, laughing eyes. Sharon could see her side of the family in them too, in the high cheekbones and the shape of their noses when she looked at them in profile, and Katie was shaped like all the women in Sharon's family. But, somehow, she'd never noticed that when Katie glared, and glared like she _meant_ it, with the folded arms and narrowed eyes, it was like looking into a mirror that reflected a sight from half a lifetime ago.

Sharon stared at her daughter and discovered, to her own amazement, that she had not entirely forgotten how to laugh.


	3. Before the Storm

**Notes: **Sorry for the slow update! I haven't forgotten about this story just yet. ;) Anyway, this is a bit of a breather chapter and there will be some progress on the where-the-heck-is-Rusty front in the next chapter. Thank you for all of your comments!

**When It Rains**

**rosabelle**

**Chapter III: Before the Storm**

**Day 33**

The night graced her with some semblance of humanity.

Sharon slept better than she had in five weeks. Not easily and not for long, but... _easier_, and _longer_. She still caught it in fitful snatches that came to her between unhappy, restless dreams. In the beginning, it was always Rusty. Rusty murdered before her eyes in a thousand different ways. Shot, stabbed, strangled. Rusty wrapped in trash bags and buried in Griffith Park. Rusty dumped like garbage or Rusty taken far offshore and thrown into the sea. Rusty buried where she would never find him.

Then the constant fear for Rusty had wondrously transformed itself into anxiety for her other children, and now she worried about car crashes and subway accidents and muggings gone wrong, and all sorts of other implausible scenarios that were unlikely to ever come to pass yet kept her awake at night. All in addition to praying that Rusty wasn't lying dead in a ditch somewhere or trading himself for food. (She didn't care that he'd taken all of the emergency cash from the drawer in her desk. He could have it all if it meant that he wasn't doing _that._)

She'd even had a dream or two where she'd woken soaked in cold sweat and concern for Jack.

But tonight, each time she opened her eyes, each time she woke with her heart in her throat, Katie was there. She slept soundly, curled on her side. Sharon rolled over, taking as much care as she could not to jostle the bed, though she knew from experience how

She prided herself on her self-awareness, and her ability to remain calm, collected, and completely in control of herself in any situation. Now she was only uncomfortably self-aware of how much she _wasn't_ in control.

Sharon hugged the comforter close to her chest and closed her eyes. They fluttered open again of their own accord, seeking out her daughter's face.

She had done this when they were children, just watched them sleep. Jack had stood beside her sometimes, an arm around her waist. With Katie more so than with Ricky, because things had already been... difficult, by the time he had been born. Her second pregnancy had, in retrospect, been the beginning of the end. Between working and chasing after Katie, she'd been exhausted but it had been a stressful time for Jack too, didn't she know?

Sharon tried not to sigh.

But on the good days, on the days where they were content to dress in their pajamas and brush their teeth without a fuss and not insist that she read the same bedtime story eleven times in a row, when they were quiet and still for the first time all day, then she would stand in their doorways and count their breaths, to marvel at what tiny, perfect people she had made and remember why in God's name she had thought children were a good idea in the first place.

She curled her fingers around the hem of the comforter to keep herself from reaching to brush Katie's bangs away from her face.

She was given to worrying. How could she not be, when her work was what it was and she heard and saw awful things every single day? She tried to keep it in check. (Or, if she was completely honest with herself, she channeled it all into Rusty, because it couldn't hurt him to have _someone_ worry over him for once in his life.)

Either way, Ricky and Katie were busy, productive adults with lives and friends of their own. They didn't have _time_ to talk every day, and neither did she, for that matter. She had a standing phone date with each of them once a week. More, if time permitted. For all of the other days of the week, well, that was why she had the unlimited texting plan and there was email, too. Though sometimes, she was tempted to remind Ricky that it wasn't necessary for him to send her pictures of _every_ kitten that he saw on the internet. It was some sort of retribution for the time she hadn't gotten him a pet for his sixth birthday.

_But Mommy._

_Who's going to play with it while you're at school? _

The memory soothed her.

_It could keep Daddy company._

_Your daddy will find a new job soon._

_Well... you should get me two, then, so they'll never be lonely._

_Absolutely not._

Sharon yawned.

_Katie got what she wanted for _her_ birthday._

_Katie wanted ballet lessons. You don't have to feed those._

The space between blinks came slower and slower, until her eyelids were too heavy to lift, and then she just lay there listening to the slow, even rhythm of Katie's breathing.

It lulled her back to sleep. When Sharon opened her eyes again, she was alone. She yawned, and turned over onto her back to stretch.

Sunlight streamed in through the curtains.

Sharon closed her eyes again, drawing the comforter up to her chin. When had she last slept past sunrise? She couldn't remember now.

And she was still so _tired_.

She was tempted to roll over and try for another hour, but she heard Katie moving around in the other room—there were footsteps and drawers opening, and occasionally there was the thud of the refrigerator door. She could have slept right through that, but then the blender whirred. Sharon pushed herself wearily out of bed and reached for her robe.

She could have slept for weeks, but Katie had flown across the country to see her for less than a day.

Sharon paused at her dresser to quickly brush her hair. She didn't bother to dress, not when she needed a shower first. But she took a moment to study herself in the mirror, and immediately wished that she hadn't. She wore her age well—most of the time. Now she looked thin and tired, and there were far more creases on her face than she liked to see.

And yet, she _still_ looked better than she felt.

Rusty was going to kill her.

Sharon tied the belt of her robe around her waist and went to see why on Earth the blender was still running five minutes later. She stopped in the doorway to her room, hands seeking refuge in her pockets as she watched Katie hurry around the kitchen with what looked like the entire produce section of the grocery store spread out across the counters.

"What..."

Katie turned.

"Morning!" she said brightly. "Hungry?"

Sharon stared. She glanced at her wrist out of habit, but her watch was still on the nightstand. She looked at the clock on the stove instead as soon as she was close enough to read it. It was a quarter to eight. "When did you become a morning person?"

"When you started talking in your sleep," Katie responded. "Your bananas were going spotty, so I just threw them all in. The strawberries too, even though usually strawberry banana isn't my favorite but I think it's okay... I can add more berries, though, if you want."

"No," Sharon said. "No, that's fine. You didn't have to make breakfast."

"That's not all," Katie went on. "There's also... cereal. You're almost out of milk, and did you know your eggs are expired?"

Sharon cleared her throat. "I haven't had the time to clean the fridge out," she admitted.

"Clearly."

Katie gave her a reproving sort of glance that made Sharon smile in spite of herself. She clearly remembered a time when Katie had been perfectly content to let everything in the refrigerator wither and die and complete the cycle by sprouting new life.

Katie sighed. "Here."

She poured the smoothie into one of Sharon's oversized mugs. Sharon accepted it, and grabbed the milk carton from the counter. She didn't plan on eating any cereal herself, but Katie had only so many hands.

It was... nice, not to be eating alone.

The thought was almost laughable. She'd spent five years eating every meal alone after Ricky had gone off to college, and she hadn't minded it one bit then, had she? No, she'd been _grateful_ for the silence and the solitude, and the chance to eat with a book in one hand and a fork in the other, and her wine close at hand.

And with Rusty here, well... He was hardly what she would call forthcoming and communicative when there _wasn't_ food in front of him. When he talked at all, he spent breakfast complaining about school and dinner pestering her to let him have dessert. There was no world in which he was the ideal person to share a meal with.

And yet.

Sharon forced herself to sip at her smoothie.

Her eyes drifted. On the couch behind Katie, she spied her suitcase, open but neatly packed. Sharon lowered her mug, her fingers curling around it as she tried not to sigh. "What time is your flight?"

She tried to sound carefully neutral. She knew that she failed when Katie frowned. "Six," she said. "So if I get to the airport a little before four..."

Sharon nodded.

"I can take a cab."

"Don't be ridiculous," Sharon told her. "Of course I'll take you."

Katie smiled a little. "I wish I could stay a few more days, but Ricky has some vacation days that he needs to use, and—"

"No," Sharon said flatly. She would have liked nothing better than to hug him too, but the last thing that she needed was another child traveling halfway across the country to sit in her living room and worry about her. "Don't even _suggest_ it to him. He's been planning that trip for weeks, and I don't need the two of you looking after me."

"He's going _camping_," Katie said. "Not on an Antarctic cruise. And he misses you, he does, and he's been worried."

"Still," she said, repeating, "I don't need the two of you looking after me."

Katie sighed.

"Which is not to say that I don't appreciate your concern," Sharon went on. "But the last thing I want is for either of you taking time out of your lives and spending money that you shouldn't in order to come here. Which reminds me, how much—"

"No, Mom," Katie said. "Seriously, no. I was the one who decided to take a last-minute flight across the country."

"I—"

"Will you _please_ just drink your smoothie?" Wide-eyed, Katie pressed her fingertips together in an entreating gesture. "Please?"

Sharon sighed. "That look didn't work on me when you were five," she said at last. "What makes you think it'll work now?"

"I'll let you take me to lunch," Katie offered.

"Let me?" she repeated.

"Let you," Katie cheerfully confirmed. "If you promise to stop trying to pay for my plane tickets and not to let Ricky convince himself that you're dying again."

Sharon felt her shoulders slump. "I never meant to worry you. Just the opposite, actually."

"Well... you did," Katie said bluntly, and frowned. "I know you're worried and I wasn't going to ask this, but... and I _do_ hope that he's okay, but—are you sure that he didn't just rob you and leave?"

"Yes," Sharon said, sharply enough that Katie winced.

Though... technically, that was _exactly_ what Rusty had done, but there had to be more. There was something else there, some piece of the puzzle that she had missed. She hoped that it wasn't the letters—they continued arriving even after Rusty was found out. She refused to let him read them, though he knew about them. But he didn't need to see them. He didn't need to be threatened and taunted about his past. The letters addressed to _her_, she was keeping quiet, for now. Chief Taylor, Emma, and Lieutenant Provenza were the only ones to know, and they were expressly forbidden to speak of them to Rusty. He didn't need to worry about her in addition to himself.

But _something_ had frightened him away. Something had made him serious enough about not being found that he'd planned his escape in advance. He had even left his backpack behind. He hardly went anywhere without it, and he'd left it behind. It was identifying and conspicuous, and he hadn't brought it with him even though he loved that thing.

Rusty was smart. But he shouldn't have been _this_ smart. He should have been able to think one, _maybe_ two steps ahead of them with the element of surprise. He'd given his security detail the slip once before and turned up half an hour later in the park playing chess. But he hadn't stopped at getting away this time, he'd stayed away for a month without being seen or heard from, and that was really what worried her because he should have slipped up by now. Someone should have responded to the Amber Alert with a lead that didn't become a dead end.

"I'm sorry," Katie said quietly. "I... just forget I said anything."

"It's not your fault," Sharon murmured. She set her mug to the side, tilting her head against her hands.

Her concern wasn't entirely misplaced, given the circumstances, and she had been honest with her children in the beginning, when they wanted to know why Rusty was staying with her. It was supposed to be temporary. A week, no more. She brought him home with her only because he refused to stay with his DCFS-appointed foster parents and she had to put him _somewhere_.

So, she brought him home and promised to find his mother if he promised to behave, and then when that didn't work out, they made a new deal. And then Daniel Dunn came along and she found herself wishing he would just _go away, _because she had grown attached almost without realizing it.

She knew, the night she came home to find his face bloody and beaten, that she loved him the way that she loved her children. She tried to express it quietly, because she knew that she wasn't his mother and it didn't matter that the woman who _was_ had twice abandoned him, because Rusty loved her anyway and she had no right to ask him not to.

But... she had thought—she had _hoped_—that the affection she felt for him went both ways.

Sharon stood abruptly, her appetite gone.

"Thank you for breakfast, honey," she said. "Let me grab a shower and then we can spend the day together."

"Mom—" Katie looked both alarmed and guilty, but at least she didn't point out that Sharon had eaten practically nothing for breakfast.

"I'll be quick," she assured her. "I want as much time with you as I can before you have to leave."

Katie still looked worried, but she nodded her head.

Sharon headed towards the bathroom. She glanced at her desk as she passed it, and her dark mood soured even further. She'd set the file on Ethan Williams's murder there after Katie had shown up the night before. That was what she had to look forward to, tonight.


	4. Stalled

**Notes: **Thank you for all of your comments! :)

**When It Rains**

**rosabelle**

**Chapter IV: Stalled**

**Day 34**

She wasn't heartless.

That was what she told herself as she stalked into the police station that Monday morning.

Emma knew what this particular group thought of her. She was... grudgingly appreciative that they were willing to tell her so to her face, because no matter how much that stung, it was always worse to hear these things second or thirdhand, or to wonder why all the whispers died when she walked into the room. And she knew that she was here to work and not to make friends with these people, but it _did_ sting—_she_ wasn't the enemy here! She was just doing her job, and that job was to convince a jury that Phillip Stroh was a monster who had raped and murdered half a dozen young women to satisfy his own depraved needs.

Maybe she was blunt. She could own up to that. She saved all of her people skills for the jury—that was when it _mattered_. Whether they liked her or not, the Major Crimes division would work with her, because they were all on the same side. Mostly the same side. If she reminded them often enough.

Juries weren't always on her side. Juries were full of people who would be fooled by Phillip Stroh's good looks and charmed by his smile. Juries were full of people who would look at the one person who could swear that, so help him God, he had seen Stroh carrying Karen Oncidi's naked body to her grave and see a troubled child where she needed them to see a credible witness. And now they would see a teenage prostitute who ran away from his guardian because he couldn't handle the pressure of testifying—and that was assuming that they could even find him in time for her to put him on the stand.

He had never been the ideal witness. So far from it, she'd had trouble imagining how he could be _worse_.

Well, now she had her answer.

Emma jabbed a finger spitefully into the elevator button.

They thought she didn't spend enough time thinking about Rusty Beck.

All she _did_ was think about Rusty Beck.

She'd given in on letting the boy live with Captain Raydor, hadn't she? Backed down on witness protection? Agreed to let him remain in what was _obviously_ a non-ideal situation, because the captain had turned on the guilt and talked about suicide risks and how he wasn't just Emma's material witness, he was a teenager who'd never had a stable home environment in his life and _didn't he deserve one now_?

Ugh.

Fine, Emma had said, because it wasn't worth it when she could see that she wasn't going to win. If Raydor wanted to keep him, let her keep him.

She'd tried being reasonable.

Look where that had gotten them.

Now she had _no_ witness. Except for the former Deputy Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson, and she was almost _worse_ than having no witness at all, because not only was she not a witness to Phillip Stroh disposing of anyone's dead body, once the jury got wind of the stalking and the harassing and the time she had named Stroh as a rape suspect in open court...

Okay, so maybe _she_ was the worst possible witness, but at least Emma knew where to find her.

What was taking the elevator so long? Emma pushed the button repeatedly, and tried not to huff in her impatience. If this was any indication of how the day was going to go, she wanted to go back to bed.

The worst part was how they acted like this was _her_ fault somehow. Not Raydor—she didn't need to when the rest of them would do it _for_ her, all the suspicious looks and the questions like "did you _say_ anything to Rusty?"—like she had _wanted_ this. She _needed_ him.

And... she did hope that he was okay. She really did. It wasn't like she didn't feel for the kid at all—he'd been in a tough situation, and he'd had to make some bad choices. Emma understood that. She did.

She also understood that, without Rusty Beck's testimony, she would lose at trial. She hated to lose, obviously, but more than that she hated that Stroh would be free to go right back to the raping and the murdering, because that was what men like him _did_. He'd been smart enough to get away with it for _years_, even while the LAPD knew exactly what he was, because he had been careful until one night in Griffith Park. Emma cared about that, and she cared about all of his other victims that she knew were out there but couldn't prove, and she cared about all of the women she was saving from becoming the _next_ victims by putting Phillip Stroh where he belonged.

Was that really _so hard_ for them to wrap their heads around, that she had more to consider than Rusty Beck's feelings? Sometimes, it sure felt like it.

Emma sighed, and stepped into the elevator.

This was going to be a long day.

* * *

_Dear Sharon,_

_Our Rusty has had a hard life here in LA. Do you ever wonder what it was like for him, whoring himself out on Sunset Boulevard? I'm sure that, wherever he is, he's in a better place now. It would be best for everyone, especially him, if he stays there._

_Sincerely,_

_A Friend_

Sharon read the letter three times, studying each word in turn until the force of her scrutiny made her eyes water. _Our Rusty—_that suggested that this person had some kind of a claim to him, but none of the letters ever contained specific details about Rusty's life beyond the occasional mention of Sunset Boulevard. That Rusty had spent time on the streets would be common knowledge to anyone connected to the case.

They had gone through Rusty's life with a fine-toothed comb months ago, when the letters had first started coming in. They'd looked into every adult they could think of—teachers, former foster parents, relatives. Sharon Beck was nowhere to be found. Daniel Dunn had married Annie after all. That bit of information had made her seethe to learn it, but he had no reason to want to harm Rusty. _Again._

None of these people had any tie to Phillip Stroh.

It was another dead end.

If there was any tie between the writer and Rusty at all, and it wasn't a false lead thrown in there to mislead them, she thought that it was more likely related to his time on the streets. It was far from outside the realm of possibility that the men who had abused Rusty would find themselves in need of a lawyer like Stroh, but those men, she had no names for. Except for Douglas Grand—but it was in _his_ best interest to stay as far away from Rusty and the Stroh case as possible.

Stroh's clients had turned up no real leads, anyway.

Her neck ached. Sharon raised her head, and pushed the letter to the far side of her desk. Encased in plastic, it slid smoothly across the wooden surface towards Lieutenant Provenza. He sat in the chair before her desk. As she offered him the letter, he pulled a pair of glasses from an inner pocket of his jacket. He settled them across his nose with one hand, and reached for the letter with the other.

His frown only deepened as he read it.

Sharon waited, saying nothing. She found herself leaning forward, the muscles between her shoulder blades tight and tense as she watched him. Her throat strained as she fought back a yawn. Sleep had been slow in coming once again.

When Provenza was done, he pulled off his glasses. Sharon folded her arms with a tired sigh, and leaned back in her seat.

She was perfectly aware of what Rusty had done, and what had been done to him. They all were. They'd seen it a thousand times before. But she had never wanted or asked for the details. There were things that she didn't need to know, and Rusty shouldn't have been forced to share with her if he didn't want to.

Was that why he had done it?

He'd known that there were more letters coming in. She hadn't let him read any of them—not the ones addressed to him, and certainly not the ones addressed to her. Had he assumed, then, that the threats were escalating? Had he been tired of having his privacy violated and his stability threatened again and again?

What had been her mistake?

"Captain." Provenza broke the heavy silence. "I could take this down to fingerprinting for you. Save you the trip."

The offer made her smile, however fleeting it was. "That's all right, Lieutenant. I can manage."

"Well." He cleared his throat. "I have a friend down there."

The sort of friend that he straightened his tie for, she noted, and raised an eyebrow. He muttered something about there being something in it for him, too, and something else about it not being _just_ a favor for her. Sharon pressed her lips together. The others... They had been nothing but helpful and considerate to her. It was no secret how worried she was. They were worried too, and they cared about Rusty—but only Provenza, she thought, knew him well enough to love him.

She swallowed.

"That would be helpful," she admitted, and honestly, she _was_ tired of going down there herself. "Thank you."

Provenza paused. "Should we be grateful that this whackjob doesn't know where Rusty is anymore than we do?"

Probably. But it wasn't any comfort to her, either way.

Provenza took the second bag from her desk as well, the one containing the envelope the letter had arrived in, and nodded to her on his way out of her office. She watched him shuffle towards the door, and sighed, giving herself a strict reminder not to hope for too much, that they'd been through this process with every single letter and hadn't found a single thing yet.

With Provenza gone, her eyes slid towards the rest of her team. She had a good view of them from here—and of the murder board they were standing in front of, the one covered in pictures of the dead boy who had looked so much like Rusty that it had almost fooled her.

There was a sudden resurgence of anxiety in her stomach at the memory of Dr. Morales lifting the sheet away from his face, of that moment when she had been so sure that he _was_ Rusty, and...

No, she told herself. Enough of that.

The boy wasn't Rusty, but he was still dead, and she needed to find his killer. She had work to do.

Sharon rose. She shrugged back into the jacket she'd hung from the back of her seat and grabbed her coffee on her way out the door.

She would breathe a little easier with some mental distance between herself and Rusty.

Unfortunately, her timing left something to be desired, because at the very moment that her office door shut behind her, she heard the door to the murder room open, and it wasn't Provenza on his way back. With her arms folded and her eyes narrowed, the new arrival looked about as happy to be there as they were to see her join them.

Sharon tried to force her expression into something more pleasant nonetheless. "Emma, what can I do for you?"

"I was coming to—oh my god, who is _that_?" Emma stopped dead when she came in sight of the board. Pale-faced, she raised a finger and pointed. "Is that—"

"His name," Sharon said, not half as calmly as she would have liked because it was worse, somehow, to know that the resemblance wasn't just in her head, "is Ethan Williams. We're still trying to determine who killed him."

"But..." Emma stared at the board for a long time before she looked back to Sharon. "So that's _not_ my material witness."

"It is not." This time, her voice didn't waver.

"Speaking of..." Emma still looked shaken. "I actually came here to see if you'd located Rusty yet."

"Oh yeah," Andy said. "We found him ages ago. Someone was supposed to call you."

Sharon heard Julio disguise a laugh by clearing his throat, and Amy looked down to hide a smile.

Sharon cleared her throat. "Why don't we talk in my office?" she suggested, turning to glance at each of them. "Come find me if you need me."

With that, she returned to her office with Emma following close behind her. This time, Sharon drew the blinds.

Emma dropped her purse into a chair, turning to face Sharon with folded arms. "Captain, I—"

"Emma." Sharon cut her off. She tried to choose her next words carefully. "I can assure you that we're doing everything that we can to find Rusty. I've kept you informed of every development in our investigation."

"If you haven't found him yet, it's not enough," Emma said, shifting irritably from foot to foot. "Stroh and his lawyer are pushing to move up his preliminary hearing. I can only stall them for so long, so whatever you're doing to find Rusty, you need to double it because without Rusty..."

"I know."

"I'm not trying to be... insensitive," Emma said, a little more quietly. "I know that you're attached to him. But without Rusty, I have no case."

"I'm aware of that, Emma."

"His testimony is vital," she went on. "If you can't find him, Phillip Stroh will walk."

"Yes." For good measure, Sharon repeated, "I'm aware of that."

She wasn't nearly as impartial or objective as she tried to be, Sharon knew, but she _was_ capable of recognizing everything that was at stake here, and Emma wasn't wrong. Rusty _did_ need to testify at this trial, but Sharon had certainly never argued otherwise.

"Well..." She didn't seem to know how to finish, but hands on her hips, Emma looked far from convinced.

"We're doing everything we can to find Rusty," Sharon said again, as much for her own sake as Emma's. "We _will_ find him."

"I hope so, Captain," Emma said. "I really do."

Sharon resisted the urge to rub her tired eyes by sliding her hands into the pockets of her jacket. They'd had this conversation a hundred times in the last month, and she knew how it went.

Between the arrival of another letter and now this, her hopes for anything encouraging happening today were rapidly dwindling.

She wasn't proven wrong until hours later, long after Emma had left.

Amy knocked on her door halfway through lunch. Sharon hadn't eaten much, but she'd been happy to retreat into her office with a mug of tea, sipping it in silence from her desk. Afterwards, she tilted her head against the back of the chair and contemplated the inside of her eyelids, until the door opened without warning.

She started, straightening in her seat and trying to look like she hadn't been half asleep, but Amy didn't seem to take any notice of her state. "Captain," she said, and the seriousness of her tone woke Sharon the rest of the way. "You should come. Lieutenant Tao says there's something you need to see."


	5. Luck

**Notes: **Another chapter! We're _almost_ to the part you've all been waiting for, so... we're getting there. :D Thank you for all of your comments! :)

**When It Rains**

**rosabelle**

**Chapter V: Luck**

**Day 34**

Why Tao couldn't just say "Rusty checked his email" like any normal person was beyond him. No, there was all that unintelligible mumbo jumbo about IP addresses and location triangulating and who only knew what else because Provenza had stopped listening at that point (if he needed to know this stuff, that's what Buzz was for, because he explained these things in as _few_ words as possible), but that seemed to be the gist of it: Rusty had checked his email.

The kid—or someone—had _finally_ logged into his account, and they knew where he'd done it from.

Why he'd waited a month to do it, Provenza couldn't say, but he hadn't expected him to up and vanish, either, so clearly he was working with some flawed ideas about Rusty Beck's character. Or maybe he was just losing his edge. Who could say?

He'd never wasted much time wondering about how the captain might react to this sort of news. Honestly, they'd all spent that time worrying about how she would react to the _other_ sort of news, the one that they were more likely to hear with each day that trudged by with Rusty still missing. That hadn't been a pretty sight. Provenza had been with her that day that Morales had jumped the gun. She'd stood there white as a sheet, her face twisted into something that he once would have used as evidence to support his claim that the woman wasn't quite human.

But they were past that now, so when she'd looked like a stiff breeze would've knocked her over, he'd offered to go in for her. He knew what Rusty looked like, after all, and as much as the boy had grown on him, he wasn't in quite as deep as she was. There was no need for her last memory of him to be his half-burnt corpse. She'd refused, of course, and he respected that because if that were one of his kids, or his grandkids... he would have done the same.

Whatever reaction he might have expected to _good_ news, she didn't show much of one then, either. Her face tightened up as if a curtain had been drawn across it and there was a slight change in her posture, her spine going perfectly straight. _Almost_ the Captain Raydor from the good old days. (The woman might have grown on him—or maybe he'd just developed Stockholm Syndrome—but he still had fond memories of the days of drawing broomsticks and pointed hats.)

Her knuckles were white where she gripped the back of Tao's chair as she bent closer to peer at his monitor, and that was what gave her away.

"Where is he?"

The low notes in her voice did it, too.

"Arcata."

"Arcadia?" Sharon repeated. One hand came up to rub her forehead. "Are you telling me that he's been _twenty miles_ away this entire time?"

"Not Arcadia," Tao corrected. "Arcata. North, about ten hours from here."

"Oh yeah," Flynn said. "I've been up that way before. Nice trees. College town. He'd blend right in."

"The IP belongs to the university library," Tao went on. "The only security cameras are in the entrance, not the library floor, but I sent them a photo of Rusty and they sent back this—hang on, let me print it—"

They all clustered around his desk to examine the photo he held up. It wasn't the best in the world, though, granted, they'd seen a lot worse. They could at least see part of his face. The young man in the photo was about the right height and build, but his face was downcast and his hair was hidden beneath the hood of a sweatshirt that also obscured the sides of his face.

He definitely appeared to be alone. No psycho with a gun to his head.

"It's... hard to say," Sykes said at last.

"Could be him," Julio agreed. "What do you think, ma'am?"

She pulled the photo from Tao's hands and held it closer, her eyes narrowing as she studied it. "It..." Her voice was quiet. "It looks like him. But—" Her eyes strayed to the board, where there was another kid who looked like Rusty. "There's only one way to know for sure."

"Already on it," Sykes said, returning to her desk. "We've notified the university police and all of the local law enforcement agencies. No news yet, but we gave them your phone number."

"Good." Sharon gave a small, tight nod of approval. "Lieutenant, when was this photo taken?"

"This morning," Tao reported. "Around a quarter to eight."

"Okay," she said. "Okay, so—assuming that this _is_, in fact Rusty, then he was—" She paused to collect herself. "Alive, as of this morning."

"This afternoon, actually," Sykes said. "He logged into his email around twelve thirty."

"Where he read two emails and then deleted the rest without opening them," Tao said.

"That's him." Sharon closed her eyes. It was so brief that he almost missed it, but she held it longer than a blink. "That _has_ to be him. What else did he do online?"

"Nothing," he said. "He logged out after that, but the library log-in he was using belongs to another student. His name is... I have it here, Ryan Wheeler. We're having him tracked down too."

"Okay," she said again. "That's... that's good. That's great." She paused again, clearing her throat with her fist pressed to her mouth. "Now... while we wait on that, where are we with the other case?"

There was a pause.

"Do I have to repeat myself?" she asked, a sharp edge to her voice.

"No, ma'am." Julio raised his hand. "Other than the killer, the last person to see Ethan Williams alive was probably his best friend, Tyler Donnelly. He goes to school with Ethan and his mother says he's a good kid, but his father..."

"Eric," Flynn supplied. "Now, _he's_ been arrested twice for possession of cocaine, which if you'll remember—"

"Dr. Morales found in Ethan," Sykes finished.

What a coincidence.

It was funny, how many of those he saw in this line of work.

The captain nodded. "I believe there are some questions I would like to ask this Mr. Donnelly."

What would it be _this_ time, Provenza wondered. He'd given the kid just a taste and he'd had a bad reaction? Accidental overdose? Something more sinister? Who knew, but he was sure that, whatever it was, he had seen it before. Probably a hundred times.

Her phone buzzed a split second before it rang, and she started visibly, fumbling for it in the pocket of her jacket. She frowned at the number. "Seven zero seven?" At Tao's nod, she answered. "This is Captain Raydor."

He had to hand it to her. He could practically feel the tension radiating from her, or maybe that was just his own anxiety, but she sounded rock solid now.

He just hoped to hell they'd found the kid in one piece.

Her face paled and her fingers curled around the phone like she wanted to crush it with her bare hands, and he sighed, expecting to hear that they'd found the wrong kid or that he'd run off again, but she was nodding along ever so slightly. "No, that—that does sound like him." She tilted her head as she listened. "Could you send me a copy of that photo, please? ... Yes, right now."

She gave the person on the other end of the line both her email and Lieutenant Tao's, since she was still standing in front of his computer and he couldn't blame her for not wanting to take the thirty seconds to walk to her own computer.

He didn't need to see the picture to know that it was Rusty. One look at her face was enough. Her eyes closed, her face turning skywards in thanks as the tension in her shoulders loosened. "Yes," she said, voice still perfectly poised and smooth. "Yes, that's him."

With that, she turned and walked calmly towards her office, whereupon she promptly shut the door behind her and drew the blinds.

Provenza elbowed Flynn out of the way to get a good look at the picture on Tao's monitor. Yeah, that was Rusty all right, and he didn't look too pleased to be in someone else's police station. It looked like he was sitting—there was a shadow behind him that could've been the back of a chair and he was definitely slouching, shoulders positioned in such a way that suggested his arms were crossed, and that was a scowl the likes of which they hadn't seen from him since the day he'd first been dumped in their laps.

It was definitely _not_ the look of someone who was happy to be found.

He had definitely left of his own volition, then.

"So..." Sykes frowned at the captain's closed door. "I guess that's good news. I mean, it _is_ good news."

"Sure is," Tao agreed, but he too sounded uncertain.

Flynn voiced what they were all thinking. "What happens now?"

"First, we have to get his ass back here," Provenza reasoned. "Which I suppose the captain will be doing herself, because if you think that woman's not going to leave here in about three seconds to drive up and get him—what, Sykes?"

"Well..." She shrugged. "It's just that—it's a long drive, isn't it?"

"Ten hours each way, plus traffic," Tao confirmed.

"Otherwise known as an eternity," Provenza muttered.

"She shouldn't go alone."

"Hey," he told Sykes, "if you want to keep her company, you go right ahead."

"I didn't mean _me._ Just... someone."

"What, do you want to draw straws for it?"

"I could go," Flynn said. "Okay? I'll go with her."

The fact that the idiot was volunteering was exactly the reason he _shouldn't_ go.

"Oh, we're _not_ doing that," Provenza said flatly, and there were all the curious looks he'd been afraid of. It was bad enough that Flynn had brought the captain along as his date—his _plus one_ to Nicole's wedding. But now there was the moping and the sighing and the looking and goddammit. The last thing those two ought to do was spend a long, emotionally charged car ride alone together because who knew what would happen along the way?

It wasn't like he was worried about Flynn taking advantage of the captain. He wasn't that kind of asshole. No, he was worried mostly about Flynn doing the thing all the way and coming back looking like a lovesick teenager and then _he_ was going to have to hear all about it until the day he died. Or the day Flynn died, because Provenza was planning to outlive them all.

The office door opened before he had to provide a reasonable objection to Flynn's participation in this little road trip, and the captain stuck her head out. "Lieutenant Provenza," she said. "Can I speak to you?"

He shuffled towards her office. "What do you need?"

"I was wondering if you might—" She paused, folding her arms across her chest, but her face betrayed nothing. "I hate to ask this of you, but you've spent the most time with Rusty and... it might be good for him, to..."

Sykes hadn't been wrong, though. She _shouldn't_ go alone, and... well, it was his duty, really, to make sure that Rusty was all right... and to then give him a piece of his mind, because he certainly had it coming.

"To see more than one familiar face?" he suggested.

"Precisely."

"Did you talk to him?"

The corners of her mouth turned down as she nodded.

"How'd he sound?"

"I'm... not sure. But," she added, forcing her face into a smile that wouldn't have fooled a blind man, "it was definitely him, and he'll stay put until we get there. Which, if we leave right now, should be around midnight, so... I can follow you to your place if you need to pack some things, and then we can stop by my condo before we... there are things I'll need to..."

This was going to be a _long_ night.

Provenza sighed, and held the door for her. "After you, Captain."

* * *

So this was where she lived.

He'd never been inside before; he'd taken Rusty out more than once (that boy knew _every_ place in Los Angeles that served hamburgers), but the kid had always met him in the lobby or they'd left straight from the office and Provenza had dropped him off outside the building on the way back.

It wasn't what he had expected.

"I'll be just a minute," she said, either oblivious to or not caring about his gawking around. "Have a seat on the couch, Lieutenant, or help yourself to something from the fridge... bathroom's at the end of the hall if you need it."

He took the couch, and she disappeared down the hall. He heard a door open and shut, and muffled sounds of movement as she rummaged through her closet or her dresser or whatever she had in there.

He'd never spent a lot of time wondering what sort of house she kept. He wasn't _Flynn_, for God's sake. But he had to admit that the warm hues and the natural light were something of a surprise, because any idiot could tell that her favorite color was purple and he hadn't expected to see quite so many plants. There was one beside her desk, and several more pots out on the balcony.

The art, too, made him raise an eyebrow, but that one maybe he should have seen coming, what with her daughter being some sort of ballerina. The good sort. Of course Sharon Raydor's children would be overachievers.

She was fast, he'd give her that. Ten minutes, and she was back in the living room, dressed in jeans, a sweater slung over one arm and a suitcase in her other hand. The sweater she draped over the armchair, and she set the suitcase beside it. "One more minute," she said. "I'm going to... pack some things for Rusty. I'm not sure what he—" She stopped, and though she turned away before finishing, he didn't need to see her face when her voice was wavering like that. "What he needs."

"I'm not in any hurry."

He hoped she held it together until they got there, because he wasn't much good at comforting women, according to his ex-wives.

He wondered what she was going to do when she saw the kid. He wasn't sure what _he_ would've done. He hadn't been the best father. Hadn't been around as much as he could've, but he'd paid his alimony and his child support on time, every time, and never complained. Well... never complained about the child support, anyway. The alimony was a different story. Anyway, his kids had turned out more than all right, in the end.

There had been a rough patch while they were teenagers, and his oldest daughter had been a handful for awhile. All sorts of crap about smoking and poorly chosen boyfriends and sneaking out at night, but the rebellion had come late enough that she hadn't run off anywhere but to college, where she'd calmed down and grown up and they'd all survived the experience unscathed except for some eardrums bruised from all that goddamned yelling. That had been a _terrible_ summer.

She'd since spawned two little hellions who adored him, and he'd concluded that everyone should skip parenting and go straight to grandparenting. He could skip the discipline stage entirely and ship them back to their parents at the end of the night. Kids could be terrible. Teenagers were worse.

And the captain was in a terrible position with _her_ teenager, because he was already under house arrest. What could she do to him that was worse than what was already needed to keep his nearsighted, misguided self alive? Because if the kid had run off for no other reason than he'd lost his head, he deserved all the punishment in the world for that, and there just wasn't anything good enough to do the trick.

She returned with Rusty's knapsack slung over one arm. "Are you ready?"

He took the knapsack from her as he followed her to the door; she had enough to carry with her suitcase and her purse and between the chair and the door, she somehow accumulated three layers worth of sweaters and coats. But she seemed grounded now, her face set and an edge back in her voice that told him that the kid was in for a whole world of trouble.


	6. Trepidation

**Notes: **Thank you for all your comments! :)

**When It Rains**

**rosabelle**

**Chapter VI: Trepidation**

**Day 35**

It took him thirty-four days to feel afraid. Thirty-five, now, because it was past midnight. One o'clock was coming up and he was still waiting, with the fear that he had so neatly evaded all this time gnawing him from the inside out. Or maybe that was his stomach. The officers who had dragged him in here hadn't offered him dinner, and he hadn't asked.

But it was probably the fear; the thought of food only made him feel _more_ queasy.

Maybe this was some kind of cosmic punishment for what he'd done—he would wait here forever, contemplating things like consequences and fallout and that one uncomfortable, undeniable truth that made him sick with shame. He probably deserved it.

Or maybe it was some other kind of punishment. The sort of punishment where she got halfway here and decided that he wasn't worth it after all, and let him be someone else's problem.

But that was just the fear talking, because in his heart, Rusty knew that Sharon would come for him. That was the source of it, really, because now he was going to have to face her. He wasn't ready for that yet. He wasn't sure that he would ever be.

Sharon understood a lot of things, but he wasn't sure that she would see that maybe he had done the wrong thing, but he'd done it for the right reasons.

Okay, he admitted to himself. It had _definitely_ been the wrong thing, but he was standing by the part about it having been done for the right reasons.

And... it wasn't quite true that he hadn't been afraid. He'd been terrified and blind with panic, and that was what had led him to do this stupid, stupid thing in the first place. Because, _yes_, he knew that it was stupid. He'd known since the terror had worn off at the end of the first day, but by then he knew that they would be looking for him and he figured that he had already fucked up too badly to bother going back.

What was the point?

If Sharon wasn't an option, then he trusted himself and his instincts to keep himself alive more than he trusted Emma and her fancy witness protection program, because he was way more invested in his life than she was. He wasn't doing so bad this time. He had food. The second floor of the library was full of couches to nap on. He was comfortable enough.

... no, that was another lie.

He was miserable and tired and he missed Sharon and he wanted to go home, but he couldn't go home because no one would let him stay there after the way he left. And if by some miracle they _did_, then it would negate the entire point of his having left in the first place.

Rusty tilted his head back against the wall and let his thoughts chase each other in circles.

These were really uncomfortable chairs, and he'd been sitting in one for almost twelve hours. The one closest to the desk and farthest from the door. But it was better to be out here in the lobby than locked up in a cell, and the officers who had brought him in had been clear about how that was where he was going if he so much as moved a muscle, basically, so he grumbled his agreement and they ignored each other, which was fine by him.

He wasn't going to run.

Sharon didn't sound like she knew why he'd done it. Not on the phone, and not in the two emails that he had managed to read before he'd deleted the rest in a fit of guilt. He needed her to know. He needed her to know that it wasn't because she had ever done anything wrong. She was the first person who had ever done right by him, and he just... really, really needed her to know that, even if she didn't believe him.

He just... wanted to skip the part where he had to actually _explain_, and all of the parts that came between now and forgiveness, and more than anything, he wanted to go back to last month and live it all over again except smarter this time. Neither of those were options available to him, so he slouched down in his seat and pretended to sleep.

He counted every second.

He knew the moment she arrived.

People had been coming and going all night—who knew so many people got arrested for being drunken assholes in public on a Monday night?—but this time, the door opened and there was no stench of booze or weed and no one complaining that the cops just needed to, like, lighten up, man, they had a card for that weed and who cared if they were smoking it at the bus stop when all sorts of way more terrible things were happening elsewhere in the world?

This time, there was only silence, followed by quiet footsteps.

Rusty opened his eyes.

He immediately wished that he hadn't.

He had thought, before, that the way Sharon had sounded on the phone had made him feel as small and terrible as he possibly could. He was wrong. Her face did that. It was drawn and tired, worry written deep into every line and crease, worse than that day outside of Taylor's office_. _He tried to shut his brain against the memory but he heard _whatever happens_ echo through him anyway, and the worst part, the really terrible part was how, even now, he could still see love in that look.

He looked away first. Lieutenant Provenza stood at Sharon's side, but Rusty couldn't bear looking at _him_, either, because there was only more worry and disappointment there. Instead he lowered his head and stared at his shoes while the tightness in his stomach spread to his chest and then into his throat.

Lieutenant Provenza stepped over to speak with the officer at the desk, but Sharon just _stood_ there, and as much as he tried not to look at her, his eyes flickered to her every half second, his anxiety rising every time.

"Rusty," she said finally.

He swallowed hard. "Sharon."

He wasn't sure what to make of the emotion that flickered across her face. Her head tilted, just a little, and her shoulders relaxed. "Come here," she said quietly, and though her voice was tight and measured, he still felt safe moving towards her.

She hugged him. The moment he was close enough, before he even knew what was happening, he was folded into her arms and drawn close against her.

For all its closeness, it was an uncomfortable embrace. It was stiff and awkward and felt nothing like Sharon, but it hit him in that moment just how homesick he had been, and he wanted to hug her back anyway. His arms wouldn't obey when he tried to put them around her, and all the anxiety in his stomach threatened to overflow.

When she released him, he was tenser than he had been to start with.

She held him at an arm's length, her eyes fixed firmly on his face. "Are you hurt?"

He shook his head.

"Are you sure?" she pressed, her fingers tightening around his shoulders.

He nodded.

Something in her relaxed, but her shoulders stiffened up again.

"Good," she said, and motioned to Lieutenant Provenza. "If you wouldn't mind taking Rusty to wait in the car while I finish up in here..."

He didn't even think of protesting. Lieutenant Provenza came around to lay a hand on his shoulder, his grip stronger than Rusty would have giving him credit for. "We'll be right outside, Captain. This way, young man."

He looked over his shoulder at Sharon on his way out, but she had already turned her back to him.

Rusty swallowed, and followed Provenza.

He wrapped his arms around himself, tucking his fingers up into his armpits as they left the warmth of the building behind and stepped into the cold. Other things he missed: actual heat, and sunshine. It rained _all the time_ here, and he was tired of feeling damp and miserable.

Sharon's car was parked right outside. He knew it instantly, even when it was nighttime and turned a funny color by the street light. It was a far more welcome sight than it should have been. It unnerved him, a little, but when Provenza marched him towards it, Rusty went.

The lieutenant stopped him when he reached for the front door, motioning instead towards the back seat. He shut the door after Rusty, and walked around to the driver's side himself. That was a little weird, that Provenza was allowed to drive Sharon's car. Rusty frowned. _He_ never got to drive Sharon's car, just the old spare car.

It wasn't a complaint, exactly, because Sharon hadn't had to give him a car at _all_ and he _was_ grateful for that, but...

The quiet was stifling. Rusty tried to open the again, just for some air, just so he could breathe, but the door didn't budge. He frowned at it because it definitely unlocked, but tried again anyway.

"Child safety lock," Provenza informed him without turning around. "I don't run, and I didn't drive all the way up here—letting her choose the radio station, I might add—just to lose you in the parking lot of a police station."

Technically, it was the parking lot of a police station, baseball field, _and_ a library. He was pretty sure that there were more officers in the security detail Sharon had assigned him than there were in this entire city.

Cautiously, he asked, "How mad is she?"

"Mad?" Provenza repeated, incredulity clear in his tone. "_Mad_? She is _way_ past mad—and so am I, for that matter."

Rusty stared miserably at his lap. "I know, okay? I know it was stupid. Believe me, I know that."

"If only you'd thought of that _before_ you let your mother think you were dead."

In the beat of silence that followed, Rusty knew that Provenza probably hadn't meant to say that. He was all worked up and angry, and that made people say all kinds of crazy stuff—but Rusty was too, and without thinking, he growled the first response that came to his mind.

"Sharon is _not_ my _mother_."

"Oh!" Provenza threw up his hands. "Well, _that_ makes it all better, then. I'm sure she wasn't worried about you at all, and that time she was identifying human remains in the morgue was just no big deal."

"What?" An icy fist closed around his insides and squeezed hard. Rusty straightened up in his seat. "That... that happened?"

"Oh yeah. It most certainly did."

Oh God.

"I did _not_ want that, okay?" Rusty hugged his arms to his chest. "I would _never_—that wasn't _supposed_ to happen! I didn't want her to worry."

"And how did that work out?"

"You don't understand," he insisted. "I did it _for_ her."

"Right," Provenza said. "You're a real martyr. Just like Jesus."

Rusty slumped down again, lapsing into silence as he waited for Sharon to finish filling out forms or whatever it was that she was doing in there. It wasn't like he had _wanted_ to leave. He'd _had_ to, and she was going to be harder to convince than Provenza.

He had never, ever wanted her to think that he was dead. He'd been in the morgue before. Not in the actual room, but right outside, with all those other dead people wrapped up in plastic sheets or whatever, and he knew that Sharon looked at dead people all the time because that was part of her job and she was a lot less creeped out by them than he was, but the thought of her thinking that the guy on the table was _him_...

He curled his fingers around the door handle until they hurt. That was what he'd wanted, he told himself. That hadn't been part of the plan. That was... an accident or something. It wasn't his fault.

But it was.

They didn't speak until Sharon appeared. Rusty had no idea how much time it took her because his thoughts were stuck in an endless, awful loop, but he sat up when the passenger door opened.

"Sharon—"

"No," she said. "Not now."

He started to protest as she slid into her seat. "But—"

"_Rusty_." She twisted around to face him. "You'll have your chance to explain yourself when we get to the motel. Just... Buckle up."

He did as she told him. He could use whatever good behavior points she was offering.

"Lieutenant, do you have the—"

"Looked it up while you were in there," he said. "GPS says ten minutes."

Rusty felt every second.

No one spoke a word the rest of the way there.

Sharon went and checked in first. Rusty sat in the car with Provenza, staring out the window. It wasn't a bad motel, he supposed. He'd certainly seen a lot worse. This one looked clean...ish.

It was forever and yet not long enough before Sharon returned with the keys to her room. She switched places with the lieutenant then, sitting silently in the front seat while Provenza went to check in himself. That silence was worse, because it was the first moment he'd had alone with her in five weeks, and it stretched between them like a chasm that he couldn't cross.

What could he even say?

"Sharon?" he ventured, just because he had to try.

"Not yet," she said tiredly. "Just... wait, please."

Rusty sighed, but he waited. And waited, until Provenza came back and they unloaded the car. Sharon and Provenza had each brought a small suitcase. Sharon pulled his backpack out of the trunk last, and handed it to him. He stared at it in surprise, then glanced at her.

She said nothing, but something flickered across her face.

"This way," she said. "It's upstairs."

She made him walk up the stairs in front of her and _seriously_, did she really think he was going to turn around and run off when she was right there? She probably did, and that... he knew that he deserved it, but it still made his throat tighten and his eyes burn a little.

He'd really screwed up a good thing.

Theirs was the room nearest the stairs. She stopped him with a hand on his arm, and let him into the room while she stood out in the hall with Lieutenant Provenza. He took a quick look around the room. Two beds, a nightstand between them. Armchair. Dresser. TV. Bathroom. Standard motel, but it didn't look like anyone had recently been murdered in here, so... he really had seen worse.

He debated turning on the TV to take his mind off things while he waited, but his gut told him that the last thing he wanted was for Sharon to come back through the door and find him looking for something good to watch on cable.

Rusty stepped back to the door. He pressed his ear against it, but while he could hear their voices, muffled and indistinct, he couldn't pick out any of the words that they were actually saying.

The minutes ticked by.

What were they going to do, he wondered, stand out there all night and guard the door? Because that was kind of ridiculous...

He heard the lock click, and took several rapid steps backwards in the hopes that it wouldn't look like he had been standing there trying to eavesdrop. Sharon dragged her suitcase in after her and locked the door. When their eyes met, she pointed to the bed nearest the window and, again, furthest from the door. Rusty went to it with a sigh. It looked more comfortable than the chairs at the police station, anyway.

He sank down into it and waited.

And waited, and waited, because Sharon just _stood_ there, still wearing her coat and her purse still slung over her arm, just... watching him, completely silent, her face unreadable.

He lowered his head.

"So," she said finally, and he heard multitudes of things in that one word.

He winced.

"There are pajamas in your bag," she told him. "If you'd like to get changed."

Of all the things she could have said.

Rusty raised his head, staring at her in surprise. But she gave him a slight nod and tilted her head in the direction of the bathroom and, at a loss as to what else to do, he took his things and went. The shirt he pulled out of his backpack smelled like home. He didn't even know what it smelled like, just that it was familiar and comforting and that he'd missed it, and if he wouldn't have felt like an idiot, he would have held the shirt up to his nose and breathed deep.

She'd even packed his toothbrush.

Rusty stared at it a moment.

He could usually read people pretty well. He could usually read _Sharon_ better than most people, because he knew her better than he knew almost anyone, even if there were still plenty of weird little things that she did for reasons he had no idea about. But... she'd surprised him again tonight, because he had expected more anger than he was seeing right now.

He'd run away from plenty of foster homes before. All of them were people who cared about him a lot less than he knew Sharon did, and they'd all been a lot angrier than she seemed to be. A lot more violent, too.

And it wasn't like he was waiting for Sharon to hit him. She wasn't like that. But... he wouldn't have been surprised, if she'd acted more like Lieutenant Provenza had. That was usually what she did when she was angry with him.

Rusty grimaced at his reflection in the mirror and left the bathroom.

Sharon had changed into her pajamas too. She sat waiting in the armchair, the phone up to her ear. She held up a finger, and motioned him back to his bed. He went, trying not to listen but it was difficult when she was six feet away.

"Yes," she said into the phone. "We are... No, you don't need to—actually, yes that would be helpful... Yes... Good night, Lieutenant Flynn."

She lowered the phone slowly into her lap, and looked at him. As they stared at each other, he realized that maybe she didn't know what to say to him any more than he knew what to say to her.

That hurt more than it should, because it wasn't like he could blame her for it, but he was so used to having her have an answer for _everything_, even when it wasn't the answer that he wanted to hear.

"I... um, thanks," he mumbled. "For... you know. Bringing me stuff."

She nodded, the slightest inclination of her head towards him. "You're welcome," she said stiffly. "And now, we're going to talk."

"I... it could wait," he suggested, because he needed more time to figure out what to tell her. "If you'd rather sleep. You look kinda tired."

He knew it was a desperate ploy that would never work, but he didn't realize exactly how wrong of a thing it was to say until her eyes narrowed. "I would _rather_ not be here in the first place," she told him. "But since that's no longer an option available to me, and since you were so eager to explain yourself in the car... Start talking. Now."

Rusty swallowed, his mouth dry. This was not going to go well _at all_.


End file.
